LX90 LNT - my first thoughts - Page 2

ballaratdragons (Ken) · #21 08-04-2005, 12:47 AM

Yep! Dob. - Stone-age astronomy and it's challenging at times, but fun. It gives a certain pride in finding stuff!! Especially very faint DSO's.
It sounds funny but often when I am nudging (hand-tracking) I don't notice that I am doing it. You just get used to it. Until I lose the object and start squiggling the blasted thing around in frantic panic!!! "Where did it go". That's when we instantly remember we are Dobbing.

I can imagine your response when you 'GoTo' an object. "Wow! That is stunning".

Whereas us Dobbers say "WOW!! I found it!!!!!!!"

iceman (Mike) · #22 08-04-2005, 06:05 AM

Rohan,
It sounds like you're getting pretty disgruntled about it which isn't a good thing.. Is there anyone around your area that can help you iron out any problems? If it really is a lemon you need to return it, but you need to get a 2nd opinion first I guess.

I think 'stringscope' is from canberra, and bird also. Can you take your scope along to any CAS meetings and get other SCT owners there to give it a try?

Rohan · #23 08-04-2005, 11:24 AM

there is a deep sky night on tomorrow but unfortunatly my other passion (dance music & DJin) calls me on weekends so i am unable to attend. I hope to get out to dark site 20min away some time next week, i'll try training the drives there and also use some different stars for alignment. See what happens after that.

acropolite (Phil) · #24 11-04-2005, 01:18 AM

Rohan,

My LX seemed to do the same wierd thing (on Auto Align) as yours tonight so I spent some time trying to diagnose the problem with auto alignment.

Every time I have used the LX so far it has been around 8-9pm and the alignment and goto have worked perfectly. Tonight it was after midnight. The first two nights at 8-9pm the LX was pointing very close to the alignment stars (Sirius and Canopus) but tonight the LX was 90 degrees (az) out with Canopus, the first star selected for auto align. Once I worked out where Canopus was and pointed to it the LX then pointed to the second alignment star (Rigel Kent) reasonably accurately. Once alinged with Rigel Kent the goto was spot on with Jupiter appearing in the centre of the crosshairs on the finder. Are you 100% sure that you are correctly identifying the alignment stars. Rigel kent is a good choice because it's a bright double and almost impossible to mis-identify. My initial guess is that it may be a software bug with the LX incorrectly slewing to the first alignment star. I will try again at various times both before and after midnight and see if I can track down the problem as I suspect it may be time related. I still haven't trained the drive but I have corrected the Lat/Long with figures from my GPS. Unfortunately in the hour it took to work out what was going on the dew beat me, but not before I had checked out a few favourites. Hope this helps, I will check further the next clear night.

Rohan · #25 11-04-2005, 07:59 AM

alignment stars i am identifing are defianatly correct, no doubt about that.

acropolite (Phil) · #26 17-04-2005, 03:08 PM

Found my problem with poor initial pointing to alignment stars. In correcting the Lat/Long I correctly entered the Long but omitted to change the default from West to East. Funny though, once aligned it wasn't a problem. I didn't even notice until I connected the laptop with the Autostar suite and noticed the "West" in the menus.

...

Have you checked to see if you have South and East set in your Lat/Long Rohan??

Librarian64 · #27 07-06-2005, 11:08 AM

I just received my LX90 last week and after a few teething problems with auto alignment I think I've got the hang of it. I was beginning to get a bit frustrated as the first 2 attempts the alignment stars seemed too far out to be realistic. However as someone above pointed out, perhaps this is intentional to allow for manual fine tunings. I like the ease of the red spot smart finder thingy; combined with the other finder, it makes for very quick and accurate fine alignment. Last night the first alignment star was Canopus; quite a long way of the mark. I aligned it than it chose Rigel Kent which was also a little bit out but closer than Canopus had been. I aligned it. Got the 'alignment successful' prompt, then like acropolite used the GOTO for Jupiter and it slewed for an almost perfect dead center view. I have to say it was pretty exciting for me. I love the way the scope seems to stop moving before the alarm but when you look throught the eyepiece the scope is still slowly tracking in. Watching Jupiter slide almost dead center was an extremely satisfying experience.

This was out of the box. I didn't have to train the drives or calibrate the sensors. Also the optics were perfect as an out of focus star was a perfect donut shape.

I'm very happy with my choice of scope. I know how much SCTs are criticised for their optics. However Jupiter looked stunning to me and I really can't complain at all.

I must try the two star method as It sounds like it may be the best overall way to align scope.

Rohan · #28 07-06-2005, 01:57 PM

heading west to a dark site this weekend. About to download new updates to autostar. Hopefully everything will go well.

Mick (Michael) · #29 07-06-2005, 03:30 PM

The alignment stars are never going to be dead on, you have to centre the stars to achieve the "alignment successful" prompt that’s the point. After "alignment successful" the Lx90 should goto and track accurately.

Iddon · #30 07-06-2005, 08:54 PM

recently purchased Paul's Lx200 GPS. The GOTO is snappy and spot on target (thats for that training Paul). The 2 star align works a treat.

As a neophyte, I have found GOTO to be a fantastic way to learn the sky. Adding the laptop for click and point gives a great visualisation of your place in the sky with the planetarium software, and also lets you see all the proximate objects in each small part of the sky.

acropolite (Phil) · #31 07-06-2005, 09:49 PM

I probably should have added that my problems were all caused by buggy software. It turns out that the version of Autostar I had (Ei) had a problem when an additional (second) custom site was entered. Since updating my problems have gone, although auto align is quite a few degrees out on the initial stars. The version I updated to was El but I notice that now version Ec is out (can't quite figure how meade allocates their version numbers)

Rohan · #32 08-06-2005, 01:09 PM

yeap i've got EC downloaded. hopefully get time tonight to upload it.

Rohan · #33 13-06-2005, 10:04 PM

Well finally got a chance to put the scope to the test over the weekend. Headed out to Griffith in central NSW to get some dark skies. Only porblem was the weather wasn't so friendly to me and it rained the entire first night. They got 1inch which i guess is the most important thing since they are suffering from the drought.

Anyway the next afternoon the weather cleared and i was excited about a clear night. Then of course just on sunset the clouds rolled in and it looked like another lost chance. Was checking the sky all night and about 10pm it cleared so i set up. Had the laptop running Starry Night Pro 5.0 and was wired in to the scope so it followed it everywhere. Also had all my eyepeices set into SNP5 so it could show me what i should be seeing.

Went to setup and found one problem. In canberra it is easy to find two alignment stars cause there just ain't to many to choose from. Out at Griffith there were millions and trying to align with the right one proved to be a challange. Especially cos i had a crowd waiting for their first glimpse of Jupiter. Eventually got it setup and alignment was succesful. Then went to GOTO jupiter and it pointed to the opposite end of the sky. So trying to avoid embaresment i slewed around to Jupiter and re-synced the GOTO on it. From then on the GOTO was very accurate and always got the object in the eyepiece but it always required a small bit of adjustment to centre it.

Overall a good night (only got 1 outta 3 viewing nights). Was still abit disapointed when trying to observe some nebulae and galaxies. Just couldn't see anything at all thru the eyepiece which was a shame. The laptop showed the telescope been spot on the object and i could match up some starts nearby and such but defianatly not what i was expecting. I'm putting that down to the fact the human eye just isan't sensative enought to pick up small detail. The only other downer was Dew was intense. The telescope was fine with its heater but everything else was just getting soaked so eventually had to pack up.

Was great to see such a bright sky though and i will now be planning a few trips out there each year to do some photography once i get my EOS 350D.

[1ponders] (Paul) · #34 13-06-2005, 10:17 PM

Don't worry Rohan, you'll get the hang of viewing. It takes a bit of time to teach yourself how to see things, then you'll be amazed at how you missed them all before.

Iddon · #35 13-06-2005, 10:21 PM

great to hear. Have only had my Lx200 for a few weeks now and the learning curve is steep. Sounds like you are on target now

That initial pointing sounds weird though.... If you do a successful and accurate 2 star align then I find that the planets or key stars are always well inside the 26mm EP after a GOTO command.

Librarian64 · #36 14-06-2005, 09:38 AM

I had my first great night of viewing with my LX90 on Saturday night. The weather held off long enough to get an hour or so of viewing time. It started with a perfect alignment which stayed that way the whole time. My girlfriend and her daughter were both as excited as I was at the accuracy of the GOTO. We viewed Jupiter first as you do and I'd been dying to see Omega Centuri so that was next and was just stunning. We looked at the Jewel Box and Butterfly open clusters which proved very popular with the women; gasps of ooh how pretty and the like. Then we had a look at M104 which was my first distant galaxy and a thrilling moment for me. Averted vision really brought the detail out. We had a look at the Triffid and Lagoon nebulae but they were a little disappointing. I couldn't see a thing when looking at the Triffid but the Lagoon showed some whispy nebulosity. I have some filters but wasn't sure which one to use and the dew was becoming a problem by that stage. Any suggestions for next time?

Anyway the worst thing was I snapped the SmartFinder lens when putting the scope away. I was a bit annoyed because it so useful for a quick alignment. I wonder how much it will be to replace.

Rohan · #37 14-06-2005, 10:15 AM

hmmmmmmm guess i'll just have to keep trying. I'm yet to have that thrilling moment when viewing

Librarian64 · #38 14-06-2005, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rohan

hmmmmmmm guess i'll just have to keep trying. I'm yet to have that thrilling moment when viewing

I'm sure it'll happen. Make sure Omega Centuri & M104 is on your hit list for next time.

One thing that Peter from Astro-Optical Supplies suggested when using Auto Align was to set the scope facing roughly North and level it manually first. Treat the scope as if it has a home position. Even though the manual doesn't say to do this Peter said it might help.

acropolite (Phil) · #39 14-06-2005, 10:43 AM

I had the same problem with faint objects, particularly galaxies, but it was simply that the sky wasn't as dark as it could have been and on later viewing sessions they were there although it sounds like you had dark skies Rohan. I also took mike's advice and bought an eye patch and that makes a big difference in my environment. I found that accurate collimation, once the OTA has cooled, also makes a big difference on the LX. My biggest problem seems to be getting detail on Jupiter. I've yet to determine whether its' seeing, insufficient cooling or some other factor but I'm certainly not seeing the sort of detail that others tell me I should with the LX; only time will tell.

Rohan · #40 14-06-2005, 10:53 AM

My site was about as dark as they come so defiantly wasn't that. Omega Cen was fine, 1000's of stars, no problems there. My tripod is always level, i have a little spirit level in my kit. And the scope is usually pointing north as well. Just trying to get that glimpse of neb or galaxy. Maybe i need some better eyepieces. Just got the stock meade 26mm and some bintel plossls atm.